get right to it. because i know we have a great group of men. who are -- [laughter] >> who have held many different levels of office and from across the political spectrum. first the governor charlie crist of florida and governor crist served in the republican -- after being in statewide office, and he was the republican governor and spoke at the democratic convention.

>> and tom daschle. and the current senator, john mccain, republican. [applause] served in our military, house, senate and of course was the republican nominee for president. you have already met governor schwarzenegger. i told governor schwarzenegger it's significantly harder. our former california governor and convener here at our wonderful institute. former governor and house member and member of the cabinet, tom ridge and republican of pennsylvania also

-- and forme house member and governor of the house, governor of minnesota. -- of new mexico. and i figured i would let them all sit down first then figure out which one was my chair. >> i come to -- that's be why senator mccain, you're the brave man here. you worked with senator crist and the majority leader while you all held those jobs. but it doesn't happen very often before people take

office. and we have wonderful examples from or former presidents. i mean bill chriss campaigned against you, but he didn't defeat you. president carter defeated >> and now he works with and with george w bush as well. and the time i was interviewing president bush was when i was doing a piece on the former president. in the same i don't understand

what's going on in washington. said when i was minority leader in the house and my father and your father was the majority leader of the house, he said we would get in the cab together and we would say what are we going to argue about? and he said this is a legitimate debate. and it was part of -- for heaven's sakes, we were the leader of our party. but then we would go back to the hill and be able to be civil with each other and have a drink and be friends.

you know, now that's not even close. i mean, there's nothing like that going on in washington today. i have my own idea why but i am much more interested in hearing yours. so i think i'll start with you, senator daschle, because you didn't do it and now you are, so why? >> well, first of all, i disagree a little bit because onand i worked together on a lot of private things. i'm glad we did. it's harder to do that today because of the airplane. the airplane allows people to leave on thursday and come back on the tuesday and no one is in washington as much as they used to be. wen your father was there, they

the whole week there. back then you had walter cronkite. today you have people on fox news and msnbc's who are not so much reporters but participants. and i think it's also in part because in the old days you didn't switch from majority to minority that frequently. before winning the majoritied that opportunity to begin to implement the majority. and so there's a lack of willingness to cooperate because it might help them win the majority. we're going to spend over $9 million and we had spent three

times more in part because of citizen's united and you have all those -- inside? and i mean, you're seeing the differences from when you first came until now? the ability? could you work with tom daschle today? >> sure. can i just say i want to thank governor shars negative for inviting me and my 100-year-old mother and wife both attended the institution, and one was a delta gamma and one was a theta.

>> why we may come out of this is because of -- yes, i'm trying to meet someone in that 11%. i'd like to ask him or her what they approve of what we are doing, and by the way, we had four former governors here. there was a story in the chow line in the state prison one turned to the other and one looked at the other and stayed food was a lot better in here when>> that was in illinois. >> i tried it in illinois. >> i am relieved that we do not have a current governor of louisiana in jail. >> i think all of us in politics crave approval. that is part of that we want to

do a job that constituents approve of. the high disapproval rating, if it stays the same, it will result in a political upheaval of some kind. i'm not sure, but neither party can govern and that low of and approve or rating without something happening sizable. i think the other thing is that this fiscal cliff, and i know we will be talking about it, it dominates the news, i do not know how we avoid it, but i think it is conscionable that the markets will start to react -- possible the the markets will react if we start to see sequestration, the bush tax cuts, the debt limit, all of these things that go to make up the fiscal cliff, i think there is a realization about the damage it could do to america's economy. it may force section on the part of the congress and the president -- force action on

the part of the congress and the president. this is the most clear campaign i have observed. i still believe there is going to be a strong motivation of us, for a variety of motivations, maybe not all good or all bad, to try to resolve this issue for the sake of the country. maybe i am digging for the pony, but i believe that that has got to happen. there is ample pressure. i will say that this majority leader acted in a very bipartisan fashion quite often, and quite often in a partisan fashion, but there is precedent for it, all the way back to ronald reagan and tip o'neill when social security was going to go broke. it is not as if it has never happened before. it has to happen. >> do you think ronald reagan could be nominated as a republican candidate today, governor crist? >> it would be very difficult.

i grew up admiring ron reagan. one of the things i admire most about him was his style, his kindness, his grace. i think we need to have more of that back into our national dialogue in politics. an ability to get a rock -- a long, cooperate, and respect each other. without that, it will be difficult to move things forward. but i am an optimist like senator mccain, and i believe we will get there because we have to. i want to thank governor schwarzenegger for inviting us all and having the leadership to do this. thank you, arnold. >> secretary richardson, do you think in johnson could be nominated as democratic candidate to president of the united states today? >> i do think so. the moderate wing, the moderate clinton-johnson -- i want to make one point, despite senator mccain's joke about governors. [laughter]

i noticed arnold said something about body mass in his opening speech. the four governors here, and i do not mean to disparage what is happening in washington, we as governors, and i hope the schwarzenegger institute does not abandon states and local government and county commissions. we have to work together with the legislature. we have to balance the budget or we go to jail. maybe that is how some got there. so by partisanship -- bipartisanship athens. i worked with arnold when we were governors on clean energy. on climate change. we were ahead. immigration -- with charlie on health care. by the way, john and i came to the congress, said the same

time. we worked on navajo issues and creating a federal boxing commission and native american issues with tom daschle. i think this is a good issue -- panel. the states, there are laboratories ofbi partisanship -- bi partisanship that the government can learn from. maybe this institute can figure that out. >> pick up on that. it is true. governors are practical, they have to do that, but you ought to have the national governors' association where you do seem to come together more -- you also have the national governors' association, reducing to come together more. >> when you give responsibility as an executive, i say this, having served 12 years in congress and having the great opportunity to serve as governor for six years, nine months, and five days. [laughter] as bill pointed out, i really

think that at the end of the day, i read the mission statement for the institute -- governor schwarzenegger talked about health care and energy and the environment and the fiscal cliff. then he talked about political reform. unless we deal with politically these other issues, so critically important -- they are not republican or democrat, they are american issues, problems that need to be solved. we need to solve them. the political dialogue is a real problem. the coarseness -- it has been aggravated by the media. you do not turn on the tv in order to be informed or educated. you normally turn on to your favorite station to have your views reinforced. i think about the declaration of independence. we ought to have a recent -- decent respect for the opinions

of mankind. we have lost a decent respect that both sides should give to one another. if you take a look of the declaration of independence, the first amendment, speech, assembly, etc. -- they wanted a marketplace of ideas. is about tolerating the other person's point of view. it does not mean you have to agree with it. it means to tolerate it. i think executive experience, having been in congress for 12 years, i give you speeches, but i was never once responsible for articulating a vision and then finding the number of seats in the house to deliver it. at the end of the day, the leadership must come from the men and women who have been given broad responsibility, the senate leaders, house leaders, and governors. is there really people to stand up and say, and off is enough. it is intolerable. i'm going to predict -- i'm not as optimistic as my friends.

the coarseness of this language -- is much easier to be an ideologue than it is to be someone who drives a compromise. it takes a lot more energy, more intellectual thought, a lot more leadership, to bring disparate groups together then to say my way or the highway. governors have to do that. >> governor schwarzenegger, you, as governor, what i was getting at with those questions about president reagan and president johnson -- the polarization of the parties. the numbers are pretty stark. in 1980, 31% of democrats identified themselves as conservatives. now is 18%. 42% of republicans identified themselves as conservative. now a 63%. you found, as governor here, dealing with your own party,

you were dealing with such polarization that it was very difficult to get things done with them. >> yes. california is the state where the majority are democrat, but it does not mean that the only republican sitting up there in sacramento, the governor's office, that you cannot get things done. you are forced to sit down with the other side. there are a lot of issues i could deal with with my republican friends. they're a lot of issues with the democrats. whenever you work with but we -- democrats, republicans haiti. one of the work with republicans, at the democrats' hate you. is not to win a popularity contest that you go to sacramento or washington. you have to think of one thing -- what does the state need? how you serve people the best way? you can throw around statistics and how things changed. no matter what it is, you have to always think about how the

issue of the people, our political leaders, how do they not become party servants or servants of the special interests, but become public servants, work for the people, for the best of people's interest. i did many times -- i worked on health care reform, like a mentioned in the speech. i would work with the democrats because it was not something republicans were interested in. it was ok. then i worked on some fiscal responsibility to treat a rainy day fund. i worked with republicans and democrats. it is something -- somehow we got a lot of things done, from rebuilding our infrastructure to reforms, political reforms, all the environmental accomplishments, from reducing greenhouse gas. it was a long list of things. it was still on behalf of the things and set out to do, you had to bring in both parties

together, but i never looked at the democrats as villains. i was married to a democrat for 25 years. i always had the utmost respect for someone who came from the democratic party and said, here is my idea. i would say, this is a great idea. i think this is a better idea than i had. let's put the two ideas together and find a compromise. you cannot just do it your way or the highway. i did that. i tried that in 2005. through the special election -- i said, here is my way or nothing. it failed miserably. i knew from firsthand that that approach does not work. the people of california, they overwhelmingly reelected the next year. the issues were on the ballot because i was inclusive and reaching across the aisle, to democrats and republicans together. no matter what time it is, 100

years ago, 10 years from now, i think the key thing is that you have to encourage -- have the courage to reach across the aisle. i mentioned in my speech political courage is not political suicide. senator mccain is a perfect example. he worked together with teddy kennedy and senator daschle, so many other people. we have seen his political courage. there are not enough at stories on the media done on the people who have political courage. they always want to look for the negative. >> it has become more so -- political suicide than it used to be. part of it is the drawing of district lines of that everybody agrees with you and the only way you can get in trouble is to not be pure enough, not liberal enough or conservative enough. the challenge to face in your last senatorial election -- a challenge from the right, which was kind of the fact highly

than behave in the senate to some degree. we have seen that with both parties. it seems to be getting worse and harder rather than people making it easier. >> let me make two points. one, let's not forget that in 2009 and 2010 the democrats had the whole majority of both houses of congress and the presidency. they were veto-proof. we had stimulus packages, obamacare, dodd-frank. if there's anybody who believes the institutions are still not too big to fail -- they had to bang years. they had the overwhelming majority for two years. the ram things through, with all due respect. we were never consulted about obamacare or the stimulus. we were never consulted about dodd-frank. we all have to work together. we sure as hell did not between

2008 and 2010. then, the 2010 elections, they were rejected. we gained the majority in the house. if we had not had three bad candidates in three spring states, we probably would have gained the majority in the united states senate. when we look back at all this polarization and failure to work together, nobody tried to work with me for two years. the second point is what tom was on. citizens united, very quickly, russ feingold and i went over that case before the night states supreme court. i have never seen such in i e failure to understand what the realities of political campaigns were about then was displayed in those arguments. the united states supreme court by a 5-4 decision said money is free speech. isn't that interesting? that money is free speech. so we have seen these

floodgates' unleashed. intelligently, the obama campaign spent hundreds of millions up -- hundreds of millions of dollars while the republican campaigns went on, the vilifying mitt romney. i can show you the chart of the unfavorables as the attacks went on. i think that contributed to the polarization. hundreds of millions of dollars spent -- $4 billion, -- $9 billion, 70% of it is on negative advertising on both sides. then obviously it will have an effect on the electorate. all i can say is that there was polarization and it did not work. -- i will not go revise history, but i believe there will be major scandals, major scandals, the history of this country has been corruption, reform, corruption, reform.

there are too many billions of dollars washing around our political campaigns. then i hope we will reform after that. [applause] >> the polarization you are talking about is being driven by ads, that is true, but also look at the numbers. when you were all in the house -- you four. >> right after the spanish- american war. [laughter] >> i had been covering it when you got there. in 1982, there were three -- 344 members of the house out of 435 whose voting records were between that of the most liberal republican and the most conservative democrat. now there is one. in the senate, it was the same thing. there was about 1/3 of the voting records of the members of senate between the most

liberal republican and the most conservative democrat. in 2010, the "national journal" ran these numbers -- it was zero between the most liberal republican, and the us conservative democrat, also gone after this election. this polarization has been going on long before this election and long before 2008- 2009. again, governor crist, you have been railing about how your party left you. a lot of democrats feel exactly the same way -- what now? what you do? >> that is a great question. for me, the experience i had, i supported john mccain. he is a great man and a true

american hero. >> why i won florida in the primaries. seriously. >> you won it because of you. he comes to florida to talk about the recovery act, the stimulus. his office invited me to greet him in fort myers. i did so. i introduced him when he came to speak there. literally embraced him. as a governor, i saw a budget. i knew what was happening to our economy. it was going off a if. i was very delighted, frankly, as a governor, knowing you have to balance the budget or go to jail, that we would get assistance. a lot of those for the taxpayer dollars would come back to florida and help us out of this thing and help our teachers, our police, our fire fighters to stay on the job.

when i did that, embrace the president, at that time -- he was the president of the united states. the way my mother and father raise my three sisters and myself was that you respect others. you do unto others, particularly, by the way, if that person happens to be the president of the united states of america. [applause] the notion that some in my former party would sustain that active decency -- would so disdain that act of decency, being nice to somebody like that and being chastised for it is exactly what we need to stop doing. governor ridge said it. we need to respect each other. we do not need to agree -- that is okay. senator mccain mentioned it

earlier. ronald reagan and tip o'neill -- they probably did not agree on much of anything, and yet they were able to have an affable relationship and be decent to one another and not to reach other down in the process. we have to get back to that and keep talking about this. that is why again, governor schwarzenegger, i want to thank you for getting started. if we do not do a bill not happen. -- it will not happen. >> i recently spoke to the senate press secretaries. the two senators from pennsylvania, senator toomey and senator casey, had the two men themselves and their staff -- had a softball game. they had a good time. they went out and place of all, had a few beers. they put it up under facebook pages and both of them told me that they got absolute vituperative remarks from their

supporters, saying, how could you possibly consort with the enemy like that? the senator from their own state. you would think that there would be a certain common interests here. but that was the reaction of the voters. bill, you had your hand up -- anybody who wants to take this, take a. >> i would say, i think what is happening now is that you have a combination of for a period of 30 years where parties have lost so much of their power and their authority. what has happened, in the name of reform, and churchill once said that the best argument against democracy is five minutes with the average voter -- [laughter] whether or not you agree with that, the fact is that what is happening is the grassroots politics that has taken over the party's -- at grassroots politics, the interest groups become stronger and stronger at the expense of the party and blend into that money, you have

an entirely different dynamic, where people do not understand what it really takes necessarily to try to work with the legislative process to get the common ground. you have to bang very distinct camps. you have a camp that says, i want my member of congress or center to find common ground. that is my all time -- i am sure people are like that. >> poling says it is the vast majority of people. >> there is another group that is not the majority, but they are a very vocal minority -- i want my congressman to stand for -- firm, not to compromise, do not give an inch. more and more of the people who they elector coming to washington with that attitude, that they cannot give an inch because their constituents, the people they believe are elected them, all that you so strongly. that is unfolding. one thing that comes that brings us together -- that is a crisis of the magnitude of 9/11

or the anthrax attack in my office. for a short period of time when we are under a physical threat, we will get on the steps. people seem to be willing to be more accommodative. that dissipates very quickly. >> debbie giffords, in your state which shot. -- gabbie giffords, in your state which shot. >> i see some positive signs. you have outlined the causes -- i think you have to add redistricting and incumbents trying to protect each other, cable tv, you raise money by being negative. the shortened schedule -- when i was in the house, we were encouraged to keep our families in washington. now you cannot wait to leave. you come in on tuesday -- >> because washington is portrayed as sodom on the potomac. i am still looking for the action myself. [laughter]

>> i think the positive side -- as a trouble, now that i am private, i can travel, i see some members of congress campaigning on both sides saying, i can work with the other side. i see that more and more. i think that is a good sign. secondly, i think the public is going to send a message this election. it may be one that we cannot quantify here. it will not be a beltway message. it will be, you guys need to start working together or there will be a third party. i think that is going to scare a lot of incumbents. lastly, and i am obviously a president -- the president's supporter, i think you'll see a president, considering his legacy, looking at what he needs to do, and then it will be the republican party, my

biggest hope is that the tom ridges, the moderates, just as i want to see more moderates and my party, and there are fewer and fewer, the moderates, i know republicans do not like to be called moderates -- moderate conservatives. >> democrats to not like to be called liberals. they are progressives now. >> what ever. the day a merger -- that the message be -- they are merged -- the message be, this extremism is not going to work. we need the invigoration of the rigids and the schwarzeneggers and senator mccain can play an enormously important role in this. i am thinking that, when the nation goes into crisis, we worked itself up. -- we work it out. it may not be instant, but i see the problems of climate change, immigration, everybody

has said, what is that guy smoking? i see some potential for common ground. >> i think it has much to do with courage. what you are talking about here is that people are afraid to cross the party line. they go in the same direction and hang out together because the voters are going to be upset and they may not get reelected. if you remain objective -- if your only objective is to get reelected, you are screwed right there. yarborough. when you talk about courage, -- you are vulnerable. when you talk about courage, talk about senator mccain, in vietnam, going through an unbelievable torture. he risked his life. every time one of our brave men

and women leads to a rack or afghanistan, wherever they go, they risk their lives. if they can risk their lives for our country, why can politicians not risk their office to make the right decision? [applause] that is where the problem lies. you have to go in there, you have to do it and -- look, every police officer i have met, every firefighter i have met, every single day they do not know if it will see their family again. that is courage -- to risk your life for your community. a politician cannot risk their office? hello -- what are we talking about here? do not take on the job. it is difficult to govern. it is difficult to be a senator, to be in congress, to

do all those things. you can be out of it in one term. so what? you have served four years or six years -- then you move on. if you just want to hang around and think this is your job, to be a career politician, that is a sad story. i think -- that is what we want to teach here at the university. the schwarzenegger institute is about -- the kids to start -- studying terrific things, how to do all these things, solve the problems, but we have to go the next step and say, if you have a different opinion with somebody else, how you get the two ideas together, come to a solution? how do you do that? that is part. how you develop this political courage? in sacramento -- they were talking about banning sodas from the schools, which everybody knew is a must.

kids drink sodas all day long, they get overweight and all the health problems -- all of a sudden, the legislators said they could not go there. i said why not? because the soda companies will kill us. i said, wait a minute, what about the people, the kids? >> they said -- you do not understand. the soda companies give us a lot of money for the campaign, we cannot go there, i am sorry. that is what goes on. there is no courage. that is what we have to change. >> i thought about many of the discussions i had at the table with my parents. my mother is a republican, my dad was a lifelong democrat. we had dinner for 30 minutes each night because he worked second job. one of the things i learned early on -- they both had very strong views about governing and governments. i learned early on that neither

side has a monopoly on the best ideas. neither side has a monopoly, neither side is so pressing that they can predict the future. cisse start off with that mindset -- i have been called for years a moderate republican. i am simply a tom ridge republican. my view has always been -- you have a problem, you have to solve it. he do not learn just to win. there are two parts -- you run to win or you run to govern. it seems we have lost the second part. you are running to win. what is the sense of holding the office if you cannot do something with it? a couple observations -- it is not just republicans and democrats. i suspect -- they ran against to from the right. you are not conservative enough. lindsey graham was not conservative and off. tommy thompson told me -- when i ran for governor, they thought i was too conservative to be

governor of wisconsin. now i'm running for the senate and do not think i am conservative enough. intraparty, we're becoming less and less tolerant. i was taught tolerance and civility was supposedly part of our dna, our political dna. i think the operative word here is courage. my colleague jack hyler, indiana, 1994, i am running for governor because of a controversial issue on the floor. i remember jack standing up and saying, i do not remember the issue, but he stood up and said, this is the vote we should all passed. it may cost me my election, but i think it ithe right thing to do. he passed it and lost.

i am not saying that is the reason he did not succeed in his reelection, but it was a statement of courage that i am talking about. from my point of view, this is the right thing to do, take it or leave it. i remember, i was running for governor -- before the primary, i had 100% voting record with the nra. with the assault weapon ban -- the idea that a person could walk to the gun store and purchase and ak-47 did not appeal for me -- to me. i voted against it. i remember -- they said, you could lose the election, you could lose the primary. i said, at least then i know why. [laughter] [applause] i think the operative word is courage.

i must add, i think there's some responsibility with the media in this as well. there are a lot of factors. [applause] >> i agree. we give our microphones to the most shrill voices. the question is always, what is the debate? what is the argument? all of that. not only is that true, but the blogosphere is even worse than what the organized media does. a lot of the vituperative this and nastiness of anonymity is really there. you had your hand up. >> i wanted to follow up on an optimistic town. i think the hope is, not to overuse the term, in this debate and we are talking about, civility -- it comes down to the people.

we travel around the country a fair amount. one thing i hear from people all the time is that, you see it in the polling. congress is not at the low that it is by accident. it is because they will not work together, that frustrates the people they are supposed to be working for. when enough of them get frustrated and off, you may see a results in the balance -- ballot box this november that will make that case in which the people who have been overly partisan and say, gee whiz, maybe the good people in america really do want us to do things that are positive and productive and help each other. maybe they have said, and not is an off, they will not tolerate it anymore. i feel that -- enough is enough, they will not tolerate that anymore. i feel that when i talked to

regular people in our democracy. i think that is coming and it gives me hope. >> when i got elected the first time in 1978, that was the primary. that was different. >> listening -- i got elected in 1970 by 14 votes, which in my state is 60%. [laughter] one of the very first things that i had the opportunity to do was to sit down with claude pepper from florida who had been in the senate and was an icon. he was chairman of the rules committee. i always admired him so much and asked him on the floor one day if i could go in and talk to him for a minute. i was so impressed by him. i forget what he told me. he said, he got elected, but your place in history will be determined by whether you are a c or a d.

constructive or destructive in the process. what we need are a lot more c's and a lot fewer d's. forget if you are a r or a d. >> but you have had eight unpleasant experience of being defeated. courage is -- of the unpleasant experience of being defeated. courage is wonderful, but you are in congress and think you are doing the right thing. that is your mission. the person running against you think is a total yahoo who is going to do the wrong thing for the people. it is not necessarily a lack of courage to try to get reelected under the circumstances. you think that your continuance an option -- office is going to be better for the voters than the other guy getting into

office. that does mean you have to trim your sales sometimes, doesn't it? -- sail sometimes doesn't it? >> i think we are alluding to is the tremendous courage it takes to stand up to special interest groups. weather is the nra, groups on the right or left, you have to do that knowing they will come after you and spend a lot of money doing everything they can do malign your record and make sure people understand that you voted against their particular priority. that plays out over and over again. when you add money and media to that powerful combination, it does take courage to stand up to the nra today or to stand up to a lot of these groups. >> public employees unions, grover norquist. >> exactly. >> how much do you see that as you try to legislate?

>> i do want to make a point that we should not forget. that is, the will of the people is what this is all about. if the people in your state or congressional district cannot agree with you, you may be the most principled individual in the world, but if you are not in tune with their ambitions and expectations for you, then they are not going to reelect you into office. let's not forget that part of the equation either. while we talk about interest groups, etc. -- the majority of people vote one way or the other. this brings me back to the money thing. two things -- what we see in america is a dramatic increase of independent voter registration. in many states, it is even close to a majority. that is the expression of the people that they are not happy

with either party. both parties have to adjust to that or sooner or later you will see an independent party with a candidate that has appeal. we r saw that oss perot. -- we saw that with ross perot. i know mike bloomberg watch them closely and decided this was not the time to do it. it will take somebody with a lot of money because it is so hard to give your name on the ballot. the other point i want to make -- the answer to our fiscal cliff is out there. is called simpson-bowles. the commission came up with was a clear blueprint of how we can get this country back on track. it is not as if we have to invent something. we have to, but another commission -- is there. now we will find out in the lame-duck session or the beginning of january whether

congress and the president will lead and address this issue. or we will face consequences that, indeed you of anybody i have talked to, are catastrophic. that makes me believe that we will probably adopt mostly or in its entirety the commission, which require sacrifice on the part of all parties. [applause] >> i think john is onto something. obviously, i think president obama would have embraced simspson-bowles regardless of the outcome -- i do not think the race could be as close. he was given a bipartisan solution to a problem that people on both sides of the aisle say exists, and yet you had with the r's and d's. the easy vote in washington is no.

you can always find a reason to vote against anything. i think he missed an opportunity. that comes back to the politics of leadership and the courage of leadership. only he knows why he did not do it, but he had the opportunity to be a leader and he did not. talking about what he advocated -- he believed in it. that is important. the comment that wanted to make -- bill richardson got elected in 1982. he had done a marvelous job campaigning on the social security issue. >> this was an member from florida, the champion of the elderly. he had been in the session for some many years, when he first

ran in 1930, his opponents accused him of being a thespian. this was interpreted all kinds of ways. >> did he engage in mastication? >> all of those. things have been rough for a very long time. at least they are not shooting each other, which they were for a lot of our history. but he ran and then came to the house is a very elderly man. he became the champion of the elderly and got through legislation that ended discrimination on the basis of age. because he was considered such a stalwart for the elderly, social security reform was able to pass because he endorsed it. they thought nothing bad -- nothing he could say would be

bad for them. >> republicans live in fear. >> they campaigned against an. >> he was responsible for a dramatic takeover. a very few republicans got elected. i asked him to do a tv show. remember, i got elected in 1982, sworn in in 1983. >> a year when 26 republicans lost their seats in the house. this was remarkable. >> i won by 729 votes. i asked him if he would do a tv program with me. i was most formal for my first reelection. clearly the most honorable. not only -- the most vulnerable. not only did he let out reform -- you would have thought that i had been the architect of the compromise, how gracious and decent and honorable he was to a young member of congress who

he did not now from adam. there was an element of collegiality and -- it's certainly useful purpose to come on the television program. he knew the campaign committee would get him, which they did. at the end of the day, you say to yourself, are we different today because the generation of politicians is different? you have a younger politician -- not the world war ii group who fought through the depression, fought in world war two, sacrificed, pulled together. they came together on the steps of the capitol on the night of september 11 singing god bless america, a unified. we will fight for freedom and be respectful and mourn the loss. then what happened? i often wonder if it is not a generational or cultural combination.

political consultants, they like bashing people with a run as an false commercials and get away with it. >> i think the key in the short-term and long-term lies in 3 bank key voting blocs. i have no data to support this. [laughter] the younger, minorities, and independent voters. i know they are key in this race. how do you get to that? as i woke up this morning, rather difficult because i came in from the east coast, i read that the iphone, the sale of the iphone 5 was going to put a jolt into the economy that was $5 billion. in other words, it will effect

the economy. i think that whoever figures out social media and technology, new ways of communicating with voters, linking policy -- because the way we have all communicated with each other and election-yearer, tv ads, cable, with all due respect, i wish you a comeback. i think that is a thing of the past. i think it will be a thing of the past. whoever is able in these three voting blocs, whoever is able to figure out a party, democrats, republicans, a third party, how to lincoln permission flow, education, expanding voter turnout. that is still a problem. we will only have 57% of eligible voters voting. they will control the american

body politic. i see that as a healthy thing. so i posed a problem without an answer. at least i will say i think i am optimistic that this new technology is going to bring more education -- information to people in those three groups that i think are the ones that will determine where this country goes. >> governor schwarzenegger -- this is your institute, so you have the last word. >> i think one of the things we should also talk about is the importance of recognizing the power of sub-national governments, regional governments, local governments. so many times, cities and states and counties, provinces around the world, they are always waiting for some action on the national level.

for instance, environmental issues -- the fact of the matter is that if you -- you as the state or local government can do a lot to move the agenda forward. we had a disagreement with washington under the bush administration when i became governor. they did their thing to protect the environment, we had another vision in california. we disagree, but we move forward. we did not wait for anybody. we made commitments to reduce greenhouse gases by 25% by year 2020 and 85% by year 2015. we came up with a portfolio of renewable -- a renewable portfolio of 30% by 2020. new common standards. all the things we did -- so much so that secretary-general bank ki-moon encouraged all the other countries to go in the same direction, national

governments -- sub-national governments have power and organization. he wanted to encourage them to go in that direction. environmental issues -- that is one issue. there are so many other issues you can address on a sub- national level. that is one thing to do at the schwarzenegger institute, to teach that and make people aware of the power of states and cities and counties. >> i think this has been a wonderful inaugural program. i want to thank the panel very much. thank you all so much for coming in. [applause] those of you who are registered for lunch, we look forward to seeing you there. i am just going to lead you, since i am a catholic girl, with the story of saint augusta.

let us not on either side claim we have already discovered the truth. let us seek to gather as something that is known to neither of us. then only may we seek it lovingly and frankly if there be no bold presumptions that it is already discovered and possessed. that is the formula for civil discourse. thank you all. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> the american enterprise institute is hosting a discussion on whether or not approval -- google is violating antitrust laws. in a few moments, today's headlines and your calls. the presidential campaign returns to virginia. president obama will hold an event at george mason university. that is live at 10:45 eastern. just after 11:30 eastern, we will bring you mitt romney from southwestern virginia. southwestern virginia. in about 45